Charges of Bribery in a Chinese Bank Deal – David Barboza

The American company says it was a legitimate cost of doing business in China, the price it had to pay to help secure a large software contract with one of China’s biggest banks.

But a Chinese company that says it got pushed out of the deal has a different version: executives there say it was bribery, a case of an American company secretly funneling money to powerful Chinese government officials to ensure the lucrative banking contract.

According to a lawsuit filed earlier this year in United States District Court in Florida, Fidelity Information Services, an American software company, paid for two Chinese banking officials and family members to travel on vacation to Hong Kong, Paris, Rome, Las Vegas and the golfing resort of Pebble Beach, Calif.[Full Text]